ASMike

The fork's bent in such a way that the brake side of the fork is now almost vertical when looking from the front. The rake also seem a little shorter. The fork can easily fit a 35c tyre so it didn't have that big of a width difference from the top of the fork to the bottom, but it's still noticeable. I was wondering if this is structurally safe to ride in the meantime, for the fork and the front wheel, as I had to shorten the spokes on the brake side to make the typre somewhat centered.

Also, should I replace it with a carbon one or another aluminium one? I've managed to find some from Ebay that's AUD95 for a Lutu Al Fork, and AUD150 for a Toseek Carbon Fork.

I'm not experienced with the pricing on parts and their quality, so are these prices decent?

Cheers.

3alarmer 

.
...if it's aluminum, I would not personally ride it after that much distortion. Aluminum can fail pretty spectacularly, and there is some question about how the crown is joined to the steerer tube, which can vary with the manufacturer..

Ferrouscious 

No, it's not safe to ride. I also wouldn't trust a carbon fork from eBay. How did the fork get bent? If it's a crash, there's likely frame damage too.

ASMike

Ok I'll take the fork off then, just so I'm not tempted to ride the bike.

Yeah the fork was bent in a crash. Ran over a median curb on the road and then went into the pedestrian curb at maybe 15-20km/h. I can't tell if there's any damage in the frame, no cracks or anything. The front wheel was destroyed in the process so perhaps it took most of the force.

Andrew R Stewart 

Metal frame rarely crack from impact. That might come miles later...

Agree the bike should not be ridden till some one who knows this stuff has a look.

I take it you are OK? Andy

ASMike

Hmm ok I'll keep that in mind.

Yeah, it was a a few months ago. The only thing left is to do some physio on my wrist after I fractured it.

That said, is there any way I can make removing the crown race easier? It's not really budging with a hammer and flathead screwdriver.

ASMike

Just a bit of a workaround, here's some image of the bike.

imgur.com/a/kGh4c7M

Andrew R Stewart 

Those fork crowns that hide the race edges are just bad design IMO. These are easier if you can drive a knife edged "blade" under the race at different points around the crown. The goal is to wedge the race up bit by bit until you can move onto a thicker blade (screwdriver) and continue the wedging up. Park's big race remover can sometimes grab the race edge but not always until a gap is starting.

For a disk braked fork that's some strong force to bend it. Andy

ASMike

Ok I'll take a shot at it. Cheers. Edit: ayy it worked~

The bend might've been the result of two incidents. Before the crash, my pedals got caught by a hump on the road and fell off the bike. The fall was enough to bend my handlebar, and I did have trouble getting the disc brake to stop rubbing. But I thought i might've just bend the caliper mount slightly.

Maybe they just rebranded a chinese fork, I feel like some of the ebay offerings do look similar.

Edit: Just out of curiousity, I tried squeezing the end of the fork together with my hand.... Am I suppose to be able to squeeze like half a centimetre in?

WizardOfBoz

You should be able to show a picture now. The fork is distorted enough so that the previous advice would be well to be heeded (e.g. don't ride that fork).

Can't tell easily but the frame doesn't look obviously destroyed. Have someone who knows look at it. They'll lay a straightedge on the top and down tubes to look for a hump caused by the crash, and they'll look for cracks in the paint to show any bending.

Nice to know that they spell WD-40 "WD-40" in Australian as well.